The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1887-12-12
A POPULAR LITERARY WOMAN.
Some Points Showing How Ella
Wheeler Wilcox Writes Verses.

| doubt if there Is another woman in New
York who would have made this remark in
just the way that did Ella Wheeler Wilcox
a day or two since.
1t was the dreariest of early winter DAYS,
sullen and dark and dirty as only rainy DAYS
in the city can be. The park policeman at
the door of the sentry box at the Eighth
avenue entrance to Central Park bent his
head forward experimentally and a rill of
water trickled off his helmet. The Ninth
avenue elevated cars sent down wet and
soggy cinders instead of dry, aggressive
ones. Everybody out of doors was be-
drabbled and everybody indoors was blue.
Yet there was Ella Wheeler Wilcox,
daintily gowned in the palest of pale blue
silk matinees, with cascades of lace falling
about it III one place and another, with her
desk drawn up close to the window, writing
away cheerily and looking up as brightly as
If the sun shone and the world was not dis
gustingly damp to look at outside.
Mrs. Wilcox has been living for some few
months in a cosy fiat in West Sixtieth
street, and is full of work and literary
plans.
II like to be interrupted" she repeated,
''and that is one reason why l like New
York; there is no other place where inter
luption comes SO easily.
No, am not one of the poets who fiv to
nature. don't mean any dsrespect to ma
ttre; the painless forests are very fine things
in themselves, but they don't in
man thoughts and human doings want
to be among people and..feel the pulse of hui
nanity throb. | enjoy having my fellow
creatures about me. | like to hear the teams
rattle by in the street. | like to stop work
now and then and go out and walk down
town and see the world busy as it is busy
here in the city every day.
81 believe write best with people about
lpe in the room. OF course shouldn't wish
to feel that they were dependent on me
for entertainment, but | like the atmos-
phere of a social company, chatting among
themselves and speaking to me now and
then. | can join in the talk and then go
back to pen and paper just as readily as if
! were alone"
''And you don't find the thread of your
thoughts broken or confused"
eff | stop half dozen times know that
the lines will run just as smoothly in the
end as if / had turned the key upon myself
and insisted on a fine frenzy in solitude
mean it. | like to be interrupted. 1t is two
months ago now that poem came to me at
the theatre one night l had time to write
few verses only, and since then | have
been out of town, and | have been learning
10 cook and | have had other writing to do.
1t was not until Sunday evening that l
found time to finish that poem There
were people here until 1920, but when
was able TO sit down at my writing table the
stanzas came as fresh and as naturally as if
the thought hadn't been interrupted for
weeks in finding expression"
You are in New York permanently?n l
asked her
Eyes, l think So" she said. 'I feel at
home here, and have been a professional
guest great deal That is exactly the
phrase, if it does make you laugh My
father and mother lived in the country, and
from the time | was 10, when my poems
began to attract attention, people kept in
viting me here, there and somewhere else.
They were very kind, and it was great ad-
vantage for me to see things of course; so |
was three months in one place, and two
months in another, and when l was mar
Jied it cost me some thinking to remember
where my gowns were. | had left dresses in
Madison, and in ST. Louis and in Chicago
NV wardrobe was scattered wherever | had
been visiting. Now, here, have gathered
by lares and penates about me, and there is
room for my desk at one window and my
husbands at the other"
Ella Wheeler Wilcox is very domestic
little woman in many way, sand she says she
hnds Mr.. Wilcox's criticism of great value
to her in writing.
1t is pretty menage that she has, home
like and inviting, with plenty of books, pic
lures and bric-a-brac, all in soft, artistic
colorings, and with the faintest touch of
cosy Bohemianism evidenced in the lack of
stiff parlor arrangements and the cheerful
litter of writing materials.
1t is a pretty mistress that the menage has
as well. Mrs, Wilcox must be somewhere
in the neighborhood of 80, but her face is
very youthful in contour and fresh in color
ing.
The poet of passion, whose fame was
built up so quickly and has endured so well,
is woman of medium height or therea-
bouts, of graceful, flexible figure and notice
ably pretty hands. One Of her most at
tractive features is her very beautiful hair,
which is soft and heavy, brown with warm
red lights shining through it. Her face is
charming in repose, but tits the quiet charm
of a happily married, contented woman.
1t is only when she speaks and the eyes light
up and the noble features become expressive
of emotion, the whole face aglow with the
thought behind the word, that Ella Wheeler
Wilcox, the poet, as she has made herself
known in literature, is differentiated from
the pretty homebody who likes to have her
husband bring his business home from the
Office and finish it in the big comfortable
armchair beside her while she is at work
She does not resent the title which some
body gave her while ago of newspaper
poet.
81 have met very little unfriendly criti-
cism," she says, ''in my life. The world
has been good to me- "A newspaper
poet ] suppose, was meant for slur, but l
don't take it so. Where else can one find in
these days an audience so wide as that the
newspapers give? Newspapers can do more
for writer than any other possible agency.
Magazines have taken my poems, but every
thing is so slow in publication through the
magazines that one has to get out of con-
ceit with ones work before it appears. 1t
comes fresher and more timely through a
big newspaper,
II have friend who had a magazine
article accepted and paid for ten years ago.
1t has not appeared yet, In a way that is
unfair to authors, who don't care always to
own every stray child of the brain when it
is ten years old. One is supposed to i'm
prove and it is not always pleasant to
have old work turning up and claiming to
be fresh.
Hurried publication of poem of mine
in the Century, by accident almost, last
winter. l was at small evening gather
ing and nearly every one had been doing
something for the entertainment of the COM
pany. Finally they asked me to read, and
gave them some verses of my own. There
were some elocutionists present and they
crowded around me and asked for copies to
recite. | told them they would have to ask
the CeDt1irv Comnany fOr. the nOpm had